CentOS - Oct 2011 - How to remove a Trash folder from a mounted ntfs partition

CentOS-5.7 using fuse-ntfs-3g

I have a HDD from a laptop that is being returned for
repair replacement.  I wish to remove certain files before
sending the laptop back with the HDD.

I have mouunted the HDD on my desktop as an ntfs
filesystem using an external SATA / USB adapter.  As root
I then used the gnome desktop to move the desired files to
trash.  Now I wish to delete the contents of the trash
folder and the folder itself. This I cannot do.  I have
tried deleting using rm -rf ./.Trash-root but the command
simply has no effect.  It raises no error and it does not
remove the Directory or its contents.

For convenience I renamed the directory to DeleteME using
move, which worked. As expected through, all attempts to
remove DeleteME still fail silently.  The permission bits
are set thus:

dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 488 Oct 21 10:54 DeleteMe

I have tried chmod -R 777 DeleteMe but this has no effect
on the permissions.

How do I get rid of this thing?

I realize that after the trash directory is removed I will
still have to over-write the unused space on the drive to
scramble the contents but I cannot get to that stage until
I free the space.





-- 
***          E-Mail is NOT a SECURE channel          ***
James B. Byrne                mailto:ByrneJB at Harte-Lyne.ca
Harte & Lyne Limited          http://www.harte-lyne.ca
9 Brockley Drive              vox: +1 905 561 1241
Hamilton, Ontario             fax: +1 905 561 0757
Canada  L8E 3C3

How about put the HDD back in the laptop, download and burn dban (
http://www.dban.org/download) to a CD and boot the laptop to the CD?


Regards,

Ron Young
919-621-9015
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ronhyoung

+++++++++++++++++++
Little tiny dreams require little tiny thoughts and little tiny steps.
Great big dreams require great big thoughts and little tiny steps.
+++++++++++++++++++
*Kosh*: The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to
vote.



On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 11:24 AM, James B. Byrne <byrnejb at
harte-lyne.ca>wrote:
> CentOS-5.7 using fuse-ntfs-3g
>
> I have a HDD from a laptop that is being returned for
> repair replacement.  I wish to remove certain files before
> sending the laptop back with the HDD.
>
> I have mouunted the HDD on my desktop as an ntfs
> filesystem using an external SATA / USB adapter.  As root
> I then used the gnome desktop to move the desired files to
> trash.  Now I wish to delete the contents of the trash
> folder and the folder itself. This I cannot do.  I have
> tried deleting using rm -rf ./.Trash-root but the command
> simply has no effect.  It raises no error and it does not
> remove the Directory or its contents.
>
> For convenience I renamed the directory to DeleteME using
> move, which worked. As expected through, all attempts to
> remove DeleteME still fail silently.  The permission bits
> are set thus:
>
> dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 488 Oct 21 10:54 DeleteMe
>
> I have tried chmod -R 777 DeleteMe but this has no effect
> on the permissions.
>
> How do I get rid of this thing?
>
> I realize that after the trash directory is removed I will
> still have to over-write the unused space on the drive to
> scramble the contents but I cannot get to that stage until
> I free the space.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> ***          E-Mail is NOT a SECURE channel          ***
> James B. Byrne                mailto:ByrneJB at Harte-Lyne.ca
> Harte & Lyne Limited          http://www.harte-lyne.ca
> 9 Brockley Drive              vox: +1 905 561 1241
> Hamilton, Ontario             fax: +1 905 561 0757
> Canada  L8E 3C3
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>

On 22 October 2011 02:24, James B. Byrne <byrnejb at harte-lyne.ca>
wrote:
> CentOS-5.7 using fuse-ntfs-3g
>
> I have a HDD from a laptop that is being returned for
> repair replacement. ?I wish to remove certain files before
> sending the laptop back with the HDD.
>
> I have mouunted the HDD on my desktop as an ntfs
> filesystem using an external SATA / USB adapter. ?As root
> I then used the gnome desktop to move the desired files to
> trash. ?Now I wish to delete the contents of the trash
> folder and the folder itself. This I cannot do. ?I have
> tried deleting using rm -rf ./.Trash-root but the command
> simply has no effect. ?It raises no error and it does not
> remove the Directory or its contents.
>
> For convenience I renamed the directory to DeleteME using
> move, which worked. As expected through, all attempts to
> remove DeleteME still fail silently. ?The permission bits
> are set thus:
>
> dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 488 Oct 21 10:54 DeleteMe
>
> I have tried chmod -R 777 DeleteMe but this has no effect
> on the permissions.
>
> How do I get rid of this thing?
Ideas:
1) Try in runlevel 3 ie without gnome/X running.
2) If selinux is running on the desktop, set it to permissive.
3) What does the output of mount command say about the ntfs partition?
4) What options did you specify when mounting the ntfs partition?
5) Have you considered the mount options for ntfs as documented in man mount?

On Friday 21 October 2011 11:24, James B. Byrne wrote:
> CentOS-5.7 using fuse-ntfs-3g
> I have mouunted the HDD on my desktop as an ntfs
> filesystem using an external SATA / USB adapter.  As root
> I then used the gnome desktop to move the desired files to
> trash.  Now I wish to delete the contents of the trash
> folder and the folder itself. This I cannot do.  I have
> tried deleting using rm -rf ./.Trash-root but the command
> simply has no effect.  It raises no error and it does not
> remove the Directory or its contents.
You say that the disk is formatted as NTFS, presumably for use with 
Windows, yet you mention deleting the files with the Gnome desktop and 
then deleting them from .Trash. I'm therefore very confused about how 
you're trying to delete the files.

If the files to be deleted are in a NTFS filesystem which is mounted 
under Linux, simple delete them. Since Windows isn't running, they 
won't be moved to Windows's trash directory, called $Recycle.Bin.

I think that you should be more concerned about deleting Windows's swap 
file (pagefile.sys), $Recycle.Bin, and the directory \System Volume 
Information, and then overwriting the free space. Even better, if the 
disk is to be replaced, why not overwrite the entire disk using shred?

Regards,

-- 
Yves Bellefeuille <yan at storm.ca>
"La Esperanta Civito ne rifuzas anticipe la kunlaboron de erarintoj, se
ili konscias pri sia eraro." -- Heroldo Komunikas, n-ro 473.

On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 11:24 AM, James B. Byrne <byrnejb at
harte-lyne.ca> wrote:
[snip]
> folder and the folder itself. This I cannot do. ?I have
> tried deleting using rm -rf ./.Trash-root but the command
Try deleting with the -f option. I.e., rm -r .Trash-root.  This will
at least tell you what the issue is. Once you fix the issue preventing
deletion, go ahead and add the -rf  (or unalias your rm command :D )..

On 10/21/11 8:24 AM, James B. Byrne wrote:
> I have a HDD from a laptop that is being returned for
> repair replacement.  I wish to remove certain files before
> sending the laptop back with the HDD.
boot a Linux rescue USB or CD to a shell prompt

   dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=65536

this will as quickly as possible zero the entire disk, effectively 
erasing all files.   with modern disks, a single pass of zeros is about 
as good as it gets, the old multipass secure "DOD" erasure was
designed
for antique disks that had bits the size of sand grains.   even this 
fast single pass of zeros will take an hour or so to wipe 300gb.

or, if you've connected this disk to a linux PC with a USB adapter or 
whatever, do the same command, replacing sda with the correct physical 
drive (no partition numbers)



-- 
john r pierce                            N 37, W 122
santa cruz ca                         mid-left coast